The New York Yankees haven't had a captain since Derek Jeter was appointed by the late George Steinbrenner back in 2003. He joined Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Thurman Munson among others in the select group of Yankees team captains.
Jeter retired following the 2014 season, and there has not been a new captain since. But longtime Yankees lefty CC Sabathia believes that there are two worthy candidates for the role on New York's current roster. On MLB's Instagram page, he praised his former teammates, Aaron Judge and Gleyber Torres, for their leadership.
"Those two dudes are just leaders," Sabathia said. "Either one of them, I could see being the next captain."
Both Judge, 28, and Torres, 23, are expected to be part of the Yankees long-term teams plans, though neither player has signed a long-term extension.
Sabathia played with Jeter for six years and was on the roster for another five seasons following Jeter's retirement to see both Judge and Torres' rise to the big leagues. Judge joined the team full-time in 2017, and was unanimously named the AL Rookie of the Year Award after a breakout season. Over the last two seasons, Judge has averaged 107 games, missing significant time due to injury, but he's remained a steady leader in the Yankees clubhouse. Once fully recovered from his rib fracture, Judge will enter the 2020 season with a career .273/.394/.558 (151 OPS+) batting line and with 110 home runs in 1,417 at-bats.
Torres, meanwhile, became a permanent infield fixture with the club the following year, during the 2018 season and has notched All-Star seasons in each of his two MLB seasons. Torres finished third in the 2018 AL Rookie of the Year voting behind Yankees teammate Miguel Andujar and Angels two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani, who took home the award. Torres has already evolved as a hitter after just two big league seasons, besting his previous season's offensive marks in nearly every meaningful category while also reducing his strikeout rate from 25.2 percent to 21.4 percent.
